Amy M. Bartlet lives in Antelope, California.
There's barely a story more wonderful than any day on the South Pacific Coast. Put my
Dip your fingers into any of these waters and touch my face. With even just the residue,
From my motel room - just a drive away from Sacramento - I can see the cypress trees,
glasses on the rows. The otters slide off the black-oiled docks and buoy upside down. I
walked the pier with my Grandmother. We looked for seagulls to photograph. One
point in the circle.
White sandy beaches perfumed by the backs of the beautiful people.
Pungent sea's tide pools, harvested starfish reeking as they dry to death lined neatly on
the rocks.
I will have the strength to go on.
smell the eucalyptus, the cedar. The only window is a tiny rectangle in the wall of the
motel bathroom, but this is California and the air comes right through the walls. Cool
and salty somewhere in the air, but in the wood of the walls and the cotton of the bed
steams the memory of a hot afternoon. 10 miles inland, the sea lions' barking makes it
all the way in on the Santa Anna Winds. Rest awake. Everything happens here.
The sound of the surf-song reprimanding the rocks
The Pacific Ocean, the sands of 101,
always the same
will keep me crying.
But only the strong king of crying -
with no tears - and headed toward home.
the south of the heart of California,
has secret historic whispers that draw you,
with hot sandy air in the afternoon,
or beads of mist on your face in
quiet dim fisher-town mornings,
to walk deep into the dark wet
where it swears in its rarest scent -
"you will breath better if you just submerge."
What a trick.
What a powerful, deceptive and
intoxicating trick.
This water will pour in and, with all the majestic pungency of the ocean
everything empty will be filled.
A black leather chair in the middle of my room.
In a soft suburban home, unfamiliar tempers flare,
I fold my legs up tightly
Two-day denim curled up beneath me
with a coffee stain on the right thigh,
or maybe it's vinegar.
Radiator-dry room
with a dim protective light
and the stub of a plane ticket
on a clean and organized desk;
proof of those who've come
and gone.
guilt, pride, pointless sharpness,
so sharp in the softness,
and a heart sought solace on a warm suburban sidewalk.
An angel was taking a cherubim for a walk.
With a little pink tongue,
in the likeness of God,
the cherubim licked a lesson into
the palm of my hands, and
with Gabriel's eyes he promised me,
'The entire Kingdom of Heaven is here'.
Then he silently bid me:
Go Love.
on the black leather chair in the
greasy old jeans
decided and safely at rest.
I know I will find I am sometimes alone.
I will wait and watch and shout among softness.
But God will always teach me joy
through tiny brown eyes
and other such beauty
that moves just beyond sight.
With angels behind me, then, to lift me high and
carry me on
through tides and times,
the dance and the fall,
I will soar
on the crest of the wave,
the joy that always comes tomorrow.
And with this assurance,
yes, as for me...
I will
Praise
His
Holy
Name.
As long as I know there's Jesus and California,
send me home.
I will not be afraid to be alone. I will walk the
soil rows of half-grown fields, half green and sun-baked dry
wrapped around with golden blankets. I will
carry my coffee and fists of old rumpled stories, never losing
hope of new ones, here among the fruit crates,
cradles of clay, indigo mountains, El pasaje de Dios -
a place that knows me.
The leaves and my past have broken to form
this dirt
beneath warm dry feet.
The earth smells of piano music on a
ten-year-old afternoon.
Who chose me to have
California? If I love a
place on Earth,
I love all the fields of California in my mother's shirt.
"Many are the plans of a man's heart but it is the Lord's purpose
that prevails."
Jesus this weary traveler scribbles
in a notebook,
All text and images in The Central California Poetry Journal are copyrighted. Copyright by © by Scott Galloway 1998. All rights are reserved. See main Journal page for
copyright information.
Authors and poets submitting original materials to this journal retain all rights to their
original work, except those rights specifically assigned in writing to Solo Publications including the right to publish the submitted work in The Central California Poetry Journal. The poems on this page are copyrighted by the author. Copyright © Amy M. Bartlett 1999.
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